From the Race Director’s Desk: Crunch Time!

Race day for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon is less than three weeks away. Whether you’re on the participant side or the organizing side, you can feel the intensity of the approaching date.

This time of year always reminds me of the weeks in college leading up to final exams. Students feel a tense mixture of anticipation and apprehension. You’re excited for the day to arrive but you’re filled with all kinds of doubts and uncertainty. Your mind is constantly racing to remember final things that need to be done. I can recall being a freshman in college and pulling all-nighter’s, trying to “cram” ten weeks of lessons into a 8 hour window at the eleventh hour. This sometimes yielded disastrous results. I remember oversleeping for the first half of a History exam and ending up with a “C” in the class.

Part of becoming a better student, a better runner or a better event organizer involves planning ahead. If you’re trying to cram a bunch of reading, a bunch of mileage or a bunch of site planning and materials ordering into the final two weeks, you can expect disastrous results. Better to stay loyal to a reasonable schedule and arrive at the classroom or the starting line well rested and fully prepared for what lies ahead.

The best piece of advice I–and probably most veteran runners–would offer to you first time distance runners out there at this point in the season is this: TRUST YOUR PREPARATION. As a student, you probably knew before going into the exam room how you would do on the test. The same holds true in distance running. Don’t try to cram at the eleventh hour. Rather, go into race day well rested and confident in your ability to make it to the finish line.